Law of the International Economy: in need of a new methodological approach?

In Law of the International Economy: in need of a new methodological approach? Dr Federico Ortino (jointly with Dr Matteo Ortino of the University of Verona School of Law) question the current validity of the methodological approach followed by the traditional legal theory of international ecomonic law.

The interconnected phenomena of IT revolution and globalization of markets have given rise to fundamental methodological questions for the study of international economic law. The underlying issue is whether international economic law should still be understood as a subsection of international law or whether it is now time to study it as a subsection of the Law of the International Economy. This latter field of law includes any rule relevant to the establishment and functioning of the international economic system. This perspective needs its own methodological approach, one that cuts across the boundaries between legal systems (e.g. national, regional, international and trans-national) and those between traditional fields of law (e.g. constitutional, commercial and procedural law). Traditional concepts of international law, focused around Nation States, national legal systems, and their direct creations (such as international organizations), do not catch all the relevant sources and actors involved in the production and application of the law of the international economy.

With the ultimate aim of sketching the salient features of the new methodological approach to the study of the law of the international economy, the paper examines a few examples demonstrating that the traditional methodology is under stress and inadequate to deal with the legal regulation of cross-border trade, investment and financial flows. These case studies deal with both the issue of the role of stakeholders other than nation states (and international organizations) in the formation and application of the relevant legal rules as well as the issue of the legal nature of the rules regulating the international economy.